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Is It Too Much to Ask That a Working Mother Gets Paid Enough to Feed Her Family Without Food Stamps?

PRESS RELEASE

April 1, 2013

CONTACT: Russell Bannan

SC Jobs with Justice Organizing
Committee

202.230.0154; rpbannan@gmail.com

50+
COMMUNITY MEMBERS STAGE “DINE-IN” TO SUPPORT RESTAURANT WORKERS AT COPPER RIVER
GRILL

“Copper River is undermining the fundamental pillars of the
work force in America!"

On Monday April 1,
over 50 community members from Boiling Springs and Spartanburg participated in
a “dine-in” at Copper River Grill in support of the servers, bartenders, hostesses,
and other workers as they fight for a voice on the job and the right of self
representation at work. The community wore stickers today that read "I SUPPORT THE WORKERS OF COPPER RIVER GRILL."

The action
coincides with the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s
march with sanitation workers demanding union recognition in Memphis, where he
delivered his famous last “Promised Land Speech before being assassinated on
April 4th, 1968.

Ken Riley, President of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, met with the workers of Copper River Grill this weekend. Riley stated; “We are with these workers because
what Copper River is doing is undermining the fundamental pillars of the work
force in America. They are taking us back to the 1920s.”

“I serve food to people all day, but
I make barely enough to get by. I am a single mother and I have to think about
the future of my 9 month old son,” Victoria Ballard who has been at Copper
River for three years. “Is it too much to ask that a
working mother gets paid enough to put food on my own table without having to
rely on food stamps?”

"I joined the
"dine-in" to show support for these workers' rights and reasonable
demands," said Spartanburg Representative Harold Mitchell, Co-chair of the
SC Progressive Network. "It's wrong for corporations to rely on tax payers
to subsidize their low-wage, high profit policies," Mitchell noted.

Mitchell, who is also Chair of the
SC Legislative Black Caucus, pledged to introduce legislation to protect often
exploited service workers. "It's against federal law to fire someone for
organizing for better pay or working conditions," Mitchell said, "we
need to require bosses to have a "just cause" to take someone's
livelihood away from them."

“Apparently Copper River thinks that
the tax payers are responsible for paying their workers,” stated Spartanburg
resident Russell Bannan with South Carolina Jobs with Justice who helped to
organize the event. “Because that is what Copper River is saying when they pay
hard working employees starvation wages.”

South Carolina Jobs with Justice Organizing Committee is a
statewide campaign for workers’ rights. Around the country, local Jobs with
Justice Coalitions unite labor, community, faith-based, and student
organizations to build power for working people#DineIn4Justice